The present invention relates to a fuel distribution system for a gas turbine engine, more particularly such an engine having aircraft applications.
Whether civilian or military, aircraft in flight must undergo diverse movements during all of the flight stages, namely takeoffs, landings, turns and, for combat aircraft, acrobatic maneuvers. Such movements during the flight of the aircraft occur about the yaw, roll and pitch axes.
On account of these motions, the aircraft, as well as the engine and associated equipment undergo accelerations in various directions, which accelerations induce load factors onto the aircraft and engine structures. Such load factors cause discrepancies in the fuel injection pressures of the gas-turbine engine injectors, thereby causing a heterogeneity in the output of the plurality of fuel injectors caused as a function of their locations in the engine.
To alleviate this problem, it is known to supply each fuel injector separately from a separate gear pump. When the gear pumps are driven by a common drive system, all of the fuel injectors are supplied with the same fuel flow. Typical systems can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,378,104; 2,936,028; and 2,599,680. While such systems function adequately, they require an unduly complex fuel supply system which is inherently subject to many malfunctions.